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Ask HN: Who's still keeping a DOS machine up because the business depends on it?

297 points · 304 comments · mlaux

zdragnar · 1790379095 · focus · HN ↗
It's been a few years now, but I know a major manufacturer had some windows XP boxes around because they were the newest hardware/software they could get with native parallel port support to interface with their machines.
To give you an idea of the complexity of the manufacturing lines, shutting the machines down and starting them back up again was measured in days. Upgrading them would be obscenely expensive, let alone replacing them, just in the opportunity cost of not making anything alone.
1. mgk123 · 1790415286 · focus · HN ↗
  For anyone that needs true native serial & parallel ports, a Dell Latitude E series laptop (or Precision 7xx0) with docking station is an easily-available option.
  The last machines with dock port have 6th gen Core CPUs (Latitude E5x70), or 7th gen for Precision 7x20.
  1. rkagerer · 1790433185 · focus · HN ↗
    Not as pure, but for what it's worth I've had success with a Syba SD-PEX50023 in applications where USB-based parallel port emulation failed.

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